Some final thoughts on Judith Warner’s March 5th post Being and Mindfulness. It generated 589 thoughtful comments from 10 PM to 3 PM the next day. Ms Warner clearly hit a nerve or maybe a couple of nerves.
It would take more time than I have to wade into the debate and diatribe. But at a high level, I take the following from the attacks on and the defense of mindfulness.
Awareness is a practice. It’s hard to talk about with people who haven’t experienced it and it’s probably a waste of everyone’s time to do so. So I discount comments with people who haven’t practiced. They are certainly entitled to their opinion especially because some of us are inclined to savor meditation while others are inclined to run for the exits. I speculate that some of this reflects differences in the ways our brains our wired and some of it is due to our individual psychological development. I don’t think a person is in anyway better or worse for being inclined towards meditation. It’s simply too individual.
Second, the idea that we and all our problems will be fixed by awareness is naive. So is the idea that we can make a self-improvement project of awareness. We simply become aware day by day. It doesn’t erase our false self; it just tires it out a bit.
Finally, the fruits of the practice are in everyday life. Our efforts are to be more connected to reality, not to a “pod” like anesthetized state. Anger and frustration still occur; we just ditch it quicker. The “edge” Warner writes about I will leave to generations younger than I. I know that I don’t want to nuture the aspect of my personality that Robert Burns lampooned two centuries ago in his portrait of poor Tam o’ Shanter’s wife, who sits at home brooding and awaiting her drunken husband’s return:
Where sits our sulky, sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
That’s an edge I can do without.